George Lucas: Greedo shot first at Han in the original “Star Wars”

posted at 10:06 pm on February 9, 2012 by Allahpundit

Via Ace, the guy just can. not. stop. He tried to ruin the original trilogy by making terrible prequels, but that didn’t work. Then he tried to ruin them with brutally cheesy re-edits, and that didn’t work. So now he’s going to start telling you that the things you loved about the original movies were never actually there in the first place. Mark my words: One of these days, he’s going to say that we’ve all misunderstood and that Darth Vader is actually Luke’s stepfather. It’s coming. It’ll be the coup de grace.

THR: People can get fanatical about the movies — how does that make you feel? The puppet vs. CGI Yoda ruckus, and the who-shot-first, Han Solo or Greedo furor come to mind.

Lucas: Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.

It’s the same thing with Yoda. We tried to do Yoda in CGI in Episode I, but we just couldn’t get it done in time. We couldn’t get the technology to work, so we had to use the puppet, but the puppet really wasn’t as good as the CGI. So when we did the reissue, we had to put the CGI back in, which was what it was meant to be.

This is the problem in a nutshell: He’s the only one who thinks the puppet wasn’t as good as the CGI. He also probably thinks the CGI spacecraft in the prequels were better than the models they used in the original trilogy. Not so. As good as CGI is now, it often still looks artificial in a way that the models and costumes didn’t. (See the brilliant Red Letter Media critiques of the prequels for much, much, much more on Lucas’s ruinous addiction to computer-generated imagery.) I’m sincerely amazed sometimes at how little he seems to understand why his movies appeal to people. Even if he did intend to edit the original Han/Greedo scene so that Greedo shot first, you’d think he’d have the good sense to accept the public’s misunderstanding of a happy accident and play it off as something he intended. Of course Han should shoot first: He’s a roguish space cowboy in a seedy saloon in the space equivalent of the wild west. He’s got a gun pointed at him and some shady green varmint telling him he’s about to die. Pull the trigger. The difference between Lucas and Spielberg is how Lucas re-edited the Greedo scene and how Spielberg didn’t re-edit the scene of Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Spielberg fully understands why the latter is so cool. He wouldn’t change it if you chained him to the editing machine, I’d bet.

I’m starting to think Lucas’s endless mind games with “Star Wars” fans is some sort of “Magic Christian” prank in which he’s gotten bored with his mountain of money and is now having fun by messing with people’s heads. Maybe he’ll put Jar Jar in one of the TIE fighters at the end of “Star Wars” when he does the next re-edit, just to kick his most devoted acolytes in the groin. Exit question: Should Obama step in and have this guy arrested before he can do any more damage? Granted, Lucas hasn’t done anything illegal, but O’s all about acting extra-legally for virtuous ends. And this end would be virtuous enough that his approval rating would jump 20 points overnight.

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Look, the man can’t gaslight us. We KNOW Han Solo shot first. Any of the changes made by the pod person replacement of the brilliant George Lucas of my childhood is just ewoks: it never happened. Yub nub, celebrate the love my nerf.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious as time goes by that Gary Kurtz was the real talent and driving Force (see what I did there?) behind Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. It’s no coincidence that every movie in the series after Kurtz and Lucas went their separate ways has sucked progressively worse.

I predict the next edit Lucas will make will be that the Death Star must fire first at Yavin 4 before the rebels decide to fight back. Since this will result in all the main characters being killed in the first movie, we will all then be spared from these endless politically correct sequels and re-edits.

The main problem with the whole freaking story is Darth Vader. He is a bad guy. No, worse than that. He’s pure evil. Think about it…
Kills lots of people including children in Ep III
Works with the dark side emperor/senator in Eps III-VI
Kills Billions of people in Ep IV (Alderaan)
Tortures Leia in prison
Kills lots of more people in Ep V
Kills even more people in Ep VI…

…then what happens??? He goes soft, kills the emperor, and gets to go to Jedi Heaven, hanging with Yoda and Ben. WTF???@?!111?

No way.

You would think that Yoda and Ben would be pissed that Anakin gets to hang out with them, after all the evil he did. Nope. Happy happy joy joy in Jedi Heaven.

I’m sincerely amazed sometimes at how little he seems to understand why his movies appeal to people.

Probably because, as the myths have receded over the last decade, it’s now increasingly obvious that he had very little to do with the success of the first trilogy. His vision and cache got the first movie made on an insufficient budget, but for Empire and Jedi he relied on actual filmmakers, who did an excellent job.

Even if he did intend to edit the original Han/Greedo scene so that Greedo shot first, you’d think he’d have the good sense to accept the public’s misunderstanding –

More than that, what George Lucas thinks about Star Wars doesn’t – or shouldn’t – matter. It’s an artistic creation. It is what it is. He doesn’t have the right (and I’m speaking in terms of critique here, not free speech or intellectual property or politics or whatever) to say “what is” and “what is not.”

The whole idea of “canon” and “Word of God” (in terms of fiction) is a geek culture phenomenon. In reality, artists are not supposed to – and in fact, almost never do – have the power to dictate how their own works are interpreted. What is on the screen is on the screen, period.

Eventually, the capitalist system will save Star Wars. When George finally expires, the rights to the films will go to people who don’t give a —- about his Jar-Jar theme park universe. They’ll hire some suits, and the suits will take about ten seconds before finally giving people what they want: the originals.

That being said, as someone who grew up on the prequels (ducks shot from Solo-wannabes) I think both trilogies compliment the story. Kinda like Lewis wrote the Magicians Nephew so Narnia’s creation could be explained, Lucas had to explain the story of Vader, or else everyone would be complaining about him not doing it.

I love star wars regardless of Lucas attempting to rewrite history to give the racial minority the first shot, and that includes Jar Jar Binks being much better then the idiotic Ewoks in Episode 6… (ducks more gun fire, but reveals hidden lightsaber and cuts y’all in half)

I agree. I grew up on (what the hell are we supposed to call them #4-#6?!?) the first three.

The ‘prequels': I got through a total of about 30 minutes. (Flipping, of course.) It was always either a case of the little kid I can’t bring myself to care about, the lover story that was duller than golf, or so much motion on the screen that an epileptic would get fits.

I guess I’m saying that, besides the stories, the main characters in the first three were sympathetic(?) (Can’t believe I just said that…if you’ll excuse me, I’m meeting Roger Ebert for tacos.)

I also think that besides the original trilogy having a great storyline, the special effects complemented them immensely. In 1977, there was nothing else like Star Wars.

Of course, by the time Return of the Jedi showed up in 1983, probably most moviegoers were getting accustomed to the use of special effects (E.T. came out the previous year) and the novelty of it was starting to wear off.

Now, of course, you can hardly get through any movie on any subject without being bombarded with all kinds of glitz to the point that it’s unusual to find a movie that doesn’t use them.

Now, of course, you can hardly get through any movie on any subject without being bombarded with all kinds of glitz to the point that it’s unusual to find a movie that doesn’t use them.

PatriotGal2257 on February 10, 2012 at 2:02 AM

Yep. You’re right. Hollywood is also kinda (well, mostly) stupid, too. If you’ve got crap for a story and dull characters, all the special effects aren’t gonna help. (At least, not for adults–my nephew loves the ‘prequels’.)

You should check out the Red Letter Media link. The videos are kinda long–but absolutely hilarious. Also, the guy makes some really good points.

See the brilliant Red Letter Media critiques of the prequels for much, much, much more on Lucas’s ruinous addiction to computer-generated imagery.

+1

The Red Letter Media reviews are not only better than the prequels themselves, the gap in between the quality and entertainment value of the films and the reviews of the films is such that you could squeeze Lucas’s ego in between them.

Lucas: Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.

Sometimes, George, I can’t believe you had anything to do with the original trilogy because you say stuff like this that makes it sound like you don’t know what the frack you’re talking about concerning your own work.

Every Star Wars fan knows that Solo isn’t a “cold-blooded killer”, he’s the scoundrel who’s always looking out for Numero Uno. He gets cornered in a bar by an ugly, green, fish-faced alien with a gun. The alien goes on and on about a price being put on Solo’s head and that bounty hunters are looking all over for him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where that conversation is headed. All the while, Han is reclined in his seat acting nonchalant while his gun hand is under the table getting ready to draw. But not only is making Greedo shoot first a travesty, but the best part of the scene is when Han leans in and sarcastically delivers his line, “Yes, I bet you have.” before firing. With the “improvement” of the Special Edition, the “Yes” part of that line is mysteriously dubbed out, and you can see Harrison Ford’s mouth form the word, but no audio so that it just comes out, “[no audio] I bet you have.”. Am I nitpicking? You bet, but the original Star Wars and Empire were the best films of the series (Empire edges out A New Hope by mere percentage points) and while some of the enhancements needed to be done, it was this sort of idiocy that has cheapened the whole franchise. I still have the original versions on VHS and am seriously considering converting them to DVD.

tyketto on February 9, 2012 at 10:23 PM

I liked Radioland Murders…still have it on VHS somewhere. If you want to dump on George Lucas for attaching his name to a film, might I suggest Howard the Duck? Besides, Lucas only helped write Radioland, Mel Smith (the Albino from The Princess Bride) directed.

A little-known fact is that Conrad [Veidt], along with Humphrey Bogart, helped to shape the closing scenes of CASABLANCA. The scene in point is the one where Major Strasser attempts to phone the control tower and prevent the plane containing Victor Lazslo and Ilsa Lund from taking off. The original script called for Bogart to shoot the Nazi in the back while he was on the telephone. Both Bogart and Veidt agreed that this would be out of character for Bogart’s character Rick Blaine. So they convinced director Michael Curtiz to allow them to change the script by having Major Strasser go for his weapon first and Rick shoot him in self-defense. After a couple of on-the-spot run-throughs of the scene, Curtiz agreed and the rest is film history.

Actually, the airport scene was originally shot with Rick shooting Major Strasser without Strasser’s getting off a shot, but the only version shown in theaters had Strasser shooting first. Depending on the source, various people are responsible for the change.

Actually, the airport scene was originally shot with Rick shooting Major Strasser without Strasser’s getting off a shot, but the only version shown in theaters had Strasser shooting first. Depending on the source, various people are responsible for the change.

Good God, who gives a damn! We’ve got a tyrant usurper in the White House systematically erasing individual liberties and a Congress and media enabling him and were discussing fictional characters in a decades old fantasy movie?

Actually, anyone who really knows anything about Star Wars knows it was the little rat looking cantina character that snuck up under the table and pulled Han’s trigger for him. So technically Han did “not” shoot first. Greedo was killed none the less without even getting a shot off. But the Mos Eisley Storm Trooper Garrison was pretty consistent about not getting too heavy handed over local disputes.

1) When he is on a tight budget, tight timeline, and has actors who criticize his script.

OR

2) When he has a real director to actually take the steaming pile of mess that he puts out as a ‘script’ and re-edit it and turn it into something worth watching.

When he has money and total creative control, he sucks as a producer and a director.

And while I love the SFX of Dykstra and Co. that Lucas brought together, they have become so common as ILM that you get a feeling of sameness in any movie they work on. Want an original ‘look’? Don’t go for ILM. ILM is pure industrial SFX and while it is snazzy, it has gotten old real fast. I thank the heavens that B5 only had Amigas to run with to make their SFX: it did them a universe of good and sets the series apart from ILM ‘helped’ offerings.

What really pisses me off is the prating about Han being a cold blooded killer if he shot first.

What?

A bounty hunter gets the drop on you, is pointing a gun at you and insists you go with him to at the very least you being robbed of your ship, and probably you being tortured and killed.

Killing that man is cold blooded?

It’s what I call self-defense.

Seriously, can’t anyone today tell the difference between good and evil?

Sackett on February 9, 2012 at 11:26 PM

You have to remind yourself-this is the liberal mindest. Lucas is a looney lib like 99% of Hollywood. There is no such thing as “self defense” to a liberal. If you shoot someone with one of those evil guns, even if they shot first or are actively shooting at you, you’re a bad man-just as bad as the criminal, if not worse. Liberalism-this is your brain (what little is left of it) on drugs.

10yo when Star Wars came out. And I was a huge fan. I had almost every toy imaginable.
I still love the old Star Wars.
But now I’m grown up. Who cares.
And now a headline like this reminds me of all my old D&D buddies who never grew up.

Hacks remain obsessed with their own sense of grandeur to the degree that the public enables the delusion.

That vicious cycle, feeding the elitist or charismatic false sense of entitlement, applies to voters grasping straws. Voters recognize that critical inroads have dissolved the foundation of America’s Constitutional Government. But too many voters are addicted to their own false sense of entitlement as to what society owes them or what they’ve rationalized that they “deserve”, and so perpetuate the status quo of greedo government authorities by willingly contributing to the furtherance of revisionism (latest version from the same old hacks), donating to hacks, propagandizing for hacks.

Not surprisingly, these days some “best” movies are indies, including some independent foreign flicks. Think outside of Hollywood.

I saw the original release of Star Wars in a theater, in 1977, once. I’ve never seen any of the others or any show about SW. The only thing I can remember about the movie was where they kick the ship into hyper drive (or whatever it was called) and the stars become a blur. That was really super effects for the time.

What really pisses me off is the prating about Han being a cold blooded killer if he shot first.

What?

A bounty hunter gets the drop on you, is pointing a gun at you and insists you go with him to at the very least you being robbed of your ship, and probably you being tortured and killed.

Killing that man is cold blooded?

It’s what I call self-defense.

Seriously, can’t anyone today tell the difference between good and evil?

Sackett on February 9, 2012 at 11:26 PM

This.

And beyond that, the scene is important in that it sets Han up as a mercenary who only looks out for number one. That’s what makes the scene at the end where he flies in to back Luke up at the Death Star so riveting — it’s the first time he risks himself without the promise of reward. He’s the most dynamic character of the movie.

Admittedly, “Star Wars” was an American cultural phenomena. Previous blockbusters leading up to Star Wars included Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and Cabaret. America’s mood was very disillusioned given the Vietnam War experience (The Deer Hunter, 1978; Apocalypse Now, 1979). Westerns had gone Spaghetti and dark. Subsequent to the fantasy 2001: A Space Odyssey, the contrasting Star Wars was packaged for mass consumption modeled successfully as a sci-fi Buccaneer Western. The ideals projected in the Star Wars trilogy, affectionately cushioned with warm and fuzzy Ewoks, provided the American public with a release valve, to juxtapose its optimistic “virtuous” future over its unpleasant memory of what just happened. Ironically, given the new shots of optimism from this flick Trilogy, look at how NASA squandered on an astronomical scale our tax dollars with inbred incompetency of its own bureaucratic making.

Rather than nitpicking over what he really meant to portray, Lucas would do well to revisit the original text, as reading is fundamental, and encourage the American public’s reading comprehension. Were Lucas to still read literature, he might actually get his act together.

This shouldn’t really surprise anyone.
Lucas has the same two problems as all liberals:

1.) Can’t leave well enough alone…ever.
2.) Insane necessity to tell people they ‘Didn’t really see what they actually saw’.
Hey George, Solo wasn’t first to shoot, he was the ONLY shooter. And it ain’t YOUR movie anymore, genius, it’s OUR memory. It ceased being YOUR movie the minute you put it on the screen and became everyone else’s experience. So you can re-edit your picture all you want, but you can’t have my memory.
Like The Man said “it’s your party, it’s your charter..it’s MY VESSEL. When you’re aboard My vessel, you’re mate, master, pilot…and I’M Captain. Take ‘im fer ballast, Chief.”

I remember there was once talk about putting Hayden Christiansen at the end of Return of the Jedi for Darth Vader. My first response was and still is to that: Luke Skywalker: [points at his father] “who the heck is that?”

Lucas is the poster child for George Orwells’ ‘1984’.
He re-edits reality on a weekly basis.

I have an Starlog Magazine #7 the first print on the soon ot be released ‘Star War’ movie. There was only 1 movie, it was Star Wars. Only much, much later was there ‘episode 4′, and I have somewhere (also much later, but before Empire) an article where GeorgeL proclaims “9” episodes…

Lucas is a tool.

Except for where he slammed the ScreenWriters Guild over opening credits. He paid the fines, supported Kershner and dropped out of the SWG, all over the union requirement to have ‘opening credits’.

Obviously, Lucas is part of the cover up. Greedo did not shoot first. Bob Fett was hiding in the grassy knoll and fired first. Or are we to believe that Greedo’s laser shot went towards Han magically floated in mid air for a second came back down hit the Governor shattering his wrist, then went back up again and hit the wall?

You know, just from the standpoint of the craft of fiction, having Greedo shoot first is a bad idea. This means that Han Solo got out of danger by sheer dumb luck. It’s just by a stroke of luck that our secondary hero escapes harm just because he faces off against an opponent who is so improbably incompetent as a bounty hunter that he can’t hit a sitting target from the other side of a table. You’re not supposed to let your heroes win by dumb luck!

It also makes Han Solo a little dumb. The bounty hunter has just told him that he’s about to die AND the bounty hunter is pointing a gun at him. Waiting for Greedo to shoot first is just rock stupid, particularly for somebody who’s supposed to have experience in evading Imperial troops.

Forget “ruining our childhood”; this change takes a halfway decent story and turns it into hackwork.

Lucas is on record as being fixated on the fact that in the original films he didn’t have the special effects to show ships taking off and landing like he wanted. This is why all the Prequels have these endless sequences where each ship lands and takes off in elaborate fashion. He actually wasted time and energy on this.

He also employs a “creative process” where he stamps his approval of character designs or sets or the like by marking Yes or No on them. But if he really loves something, he uses a “Fabulouso” stamp. Somewhere, there are Jar Jar Binks character design sheets covered in frantic “Fabulouso” stamps from this guy.

In addition to the aforementioned brilliant RLM critiques of the Star Wars prequels (including the new 3-D re-release!), they did a Siskel and Ebert-style review of Red Tails (the most recent George Lucas disaster). Worth your time.

Good Lt on February 10, 2012 at 10:00 AM

Sad thing is, Red Tails was the first Lucas film I’ve seen that actually had a plot since The Last Crusade.

Judging by that awfully low bar, it wasn’t half-bad.

Of course, the film was in development hell for 25 years… and was partially handled by that Boondocks guy, Aaron MacGruder.

he’s gotten bored with his mountain of money and is now having fun by messing with people’s heads.

No.

I’m sincerely amazed sometimes at how little he seems to understand why his movies appeal to people.

Yes.

Seriously, I think that he got lucky with his first Star Wars movie, but the brand was so strong that it continued to have success despite the fact that the appeal has been in steady decline since the 80’s.

Han didn’t shoot first, Han fired the only shot! Greedo had zero chance, like an idiot, he leveled a weapon on an opponent and didn’t use it.

Solo never came across as a cold blooded killer, he’s just smarter than that lackwit Rodian ever dreamed.

PXCharon on February 9, 2012 at 10:52 PM

Exactly. No matter how far back the camera had been pulled, no shot from Greedo’s weapon was there to be seen in the original version.

Ira on February 10, 2012 at 4:14 AM

Exactly. In the space of two seconds, Lucas established everything anyone needed to know about Han Solo.

RotJ was the start of Lucas’s obsession/reliance on special effects. He no longer had to worry about the budget since he’d made so much money off of ANH and TESB. He self-financed RotJ, and he owned ILM. Irv Kirshner and Harrison Ford essentially hijacked TESB when they were in London, and George was in Hollywood having screaming hysterics over the daily rushes. Even though he didn’t direct it himself, George very tightly controlled the RotJ director, and has never again let anyone have as much freedom as Kirshner got. And it shows in the prequels. Rumor has it that Spielberg directed the last twenty minutes or so of RotS, and I can believe it. There’s more character involvement and emotional buy-in in those twenty minutes than the entire rest of the prequels put together.

I remember watching Star Wars on opening day at the Coronet in Frisco in ’77.

A major point of the scene, watching it for the first time, was you didn’t know whether this ‘Han’ smuggler character was going to prove a scumbag who’d turn Luke and friends over to the Empire for the reward the moment it became expeditious to do so. Han shooting first increased the likelihood he was such a ruthless character and therefore increased the suspense.

Holy Smokes, Batman, these people have to become so immersed in a freakin MOVIE that they actually spend time arguing about an unimportant part of a totally man-created movie that really has only the technology to separate it from the movie ‘Seven Cowboy Hero’s on the Trail’, or something like that…. lol

Make the toy, then when you have enough money form selling it, you get to step back and play with it any way you want.

It really doesn’t seem to matter that much to Lucas what the rest of us like, anyway. The story is his, he likes that we like it, and revels in the fact we give him millions because of it. But the story is sitll his, it’s his sand-box, and we play in it at his pleasure, and his discretion, and by his rules.